Friday, January 15, 2010

Well it's not often that I give Royal Caribbean credit for their generousity, but it seems they are making a relief effort in Haiti - even if  lacks altruism.  After all, they've just made a multi-million investment in expanding Labadee, their private (?) beach on the north coast of Haiti  so that their 5,000+ passenger vessel Oasis of the Seas can call there.  What's private about a small beach with  5,000 of your new best friends?  Sounds about as private as Coney Island.  Let's note that Labadee is on the other side of the mountain range, and nowhere near the earthquake zone.  Here's their press:

Royal Caribbean International is loading up earthquake relief supplies for Haiti on Independence of the Seas and intends to transport more supplies on other vessels stopping at its private island of Labadee, which is off the coast of Haiti. In his blog, Royal Caribbean pesident Adam Goldstein said the first relief supplies will be taken on Independence of the Seas to Labadee (the ship was already scheduled to call there - not like it's out of their way) and distributed through Food for the Poor.
“We are also in the process of coordinating additional relief supplies that will be loaded on Navigator of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas, and will be taken to Labadee on Monday and Tuesday of next week,” (during their regularly scheduled calls there) Goldstein wrote. “The supplies we are sending include rice, dried beans, water, dried milk and a variety of other canned items. This effort is going to be a marathon, so we will be partnering with Food for the Poor on the back-end distribution in Haiti.”
Goldstein also wrote that  they are committed to continuing calls to Labadee with Independence of the Seas and other ships. “There were a lot of discussions about this, but in the end Labadee is critical to Haiti’s recovery and hundreds of people rely on Labadee for their livelihood,” he wrote. (What?  No mention of their recent heavy investment there.) “In our conversations with the U.N. Special Envoy of the Government of Haiti Leslie Voltaire, he notes that Haiti will benefit from the revenues that are generated from each call, which is critical to their recovery. We also have tremendous opportunities to use our ships as transport vessels for relief supplies and personnel to Haiti. Simply put, we cannot abandon Haiti now that they need us most.”  (It would cost us money!)